Acting Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy told Congress that the agency hasn’t disciplined any employees for several communications misstatements and a decision to divert agents guarding the perimeter of the White House to the house of a staffer in Maryland.
Clancy appeared before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday to report on the steps he has taken in his month on the job to rebuild the agency’s tarnished reputation in the wake of a series of security breaches.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked the most penetrating questions.
Chaffetz, who has spearheaded increased scrutiny of the agency over the last year, confirmed that the agency has an internal prohibition against providing false and misleading information, and if an employee is found to have violated it, the least amount of punishment he or she would receive is a five-day suspension without pay.
He then asked why Ed Donovan, the Secret Service’s communications director, initially erroneously told the Associated Press after a Sept. 19 fence-jumping incident that the man was apprehended just inside the White House North Portico doors and was not armed. The man actually was able to make it into the East Room, the ceremonial heart of the White House, with a small knife before agents wrestled him to the ground.
Clancy said he didn’t know the answer and didn’t know why the Secret Service never acted to correct the false details of that statement.
“So they just let that linger out there in perpetuity,” Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz also asked Clancy about Operation Moonlight, which involved the diversion of agents from a “prowler” vehicle monitoring the perimeter of the White House to La Plata, Md., to check on the safety of an administrative assistant to the then-director.
The DHS inspector general in late October issued a memo concluding that Secret Service officials erred in ordering Operation Moonlight and said it showed a “serious lapse in judgment” and wasn’t “legally or procedurally” justified.
Pressed on whether he believed the operation reduced White House security, Clancy referred to the inspector general’s report in which the agents interviewed about it said it did not affect the protection of the president.
Asked whether anyone was punished for the incidents, Clancy appeared to say that at least in the communications misstatements it “was not an intentional violation of the code” and in all the examples “there was no discipline administered.”
The response appeared to strike a nerve with Chaffetz.
“With all due respect … until you actually live by your own codes and you hold people responsible and accountable, you’re going to continue to have this problem,” Chaffetz concluded.
In reviewing Operation Moonlight, the DHS inspector general found that A.T. Smith, who now serves as the agency’s deputy director, ordered the diversion of agents to Maryland.
Smith, as part of his many duties, oversees a relatively new Office of Integrity at the agency, which serves as a clearinghouse for internal complaints and grievances.
The committee held the hearing in response to 17 White House north lawn fence-jumpers this year alone, including an incident Sept. 19 in which a man made it into an open White House front door and into the East Room before being tackled by agents.
After that incident and revelations of several other security breaches, Julia Pierson resigned as Secret Service director and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson named Clancy as interim director.
During nearly two hours of testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, members of Congress also peppered Clancy with more obvious questions about whether the agency needs to strengthen the fence around the White House.
“Would a moat, water, six-feet around be kind of attractive and effective,” Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked at one point.
Other lawmakers asked if they should replace the fence with something higher.
Agency officials, Clancy said, are working with the National Capital Planning Commission, the Fine Arts Commission and the National Park Service to evaluate options for the perimeter of the complex that could help prevent fence-jumpers from breaching White House security. He said he hopes to have some drawings for members of Congress to review within the next few months.
“One of the things we balance is obviously the accessibility of the White House. We recognize the historic nature of the White House and how the American people should have access to the White House,” he said.
Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., noted that a DHS review of the Sept. 19 incident uncovered a laundry list of errors that evening, including “communications systems that didn’t work and that officers were not trained property, a construction project along the White House fence that obscured officers’ sight-lines.”
Goodlatte was particularly critical of a finding that a canine officer was on a personal cell phone call without his radio earpiece in or his tactical radio at the time Omar Gonzalez scaled the fence. The report also disclosed a number of training and staff issues, as well as potential missed opportunities to stop Gonzalez in the months leading up to the incident.
Clancy said the review uncovered evidence that the level of training for uniformed division officers likely contributed to the breach because there was “confusion regarding the various roles and responsibilities during a fence-jumping incident.”
He said he would continue to oversee the integrated training for White House Uniformed Division officers and tactical teams initiated after the incident. The training, he said, involves exercises simulating breaches of the White House grounds.
“My goal is to ensure that 100 percent of all White House branch officers receive this training by the end of the calendar year,” he said.
Understaffing and low morale is also contributing to the failures, he argued. Improvements are underway after Congress provided more funding over the last year enabling the agency to hire 238 new law-enforcement positions, which he said amount to more than triple the number of hires over the previous two years combined.
Fiscal constraints had caused the agency to virtually freeze hiring in 2012 and 2013, and Clancy said the Secret Service is now working toward full employment.
Until then, however, the agency will remain understaffed, causing employees to lose earned vacation time and work more overtime hours, further eroding morale.
“When we’re not properly trained, sir, we fail,” he said in response to a question by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.
